June 30, 2017: Our First Fri-YAY!

Hi everyone! It’s Fri-YAY! We’ve had an amazing first week here at IBM and it’s so crazy to see the days go by so quickly. We have finally gotten familiar with the office and can pretty much find our way around. Our go to spots are the MediaScape couches (soooo comfy), the Cafe (if there’s no Tillamook cheese, that’s probably because Michelle ate it), and the “Intern area” (8th floor, to the right). The only thing keeping us from being full-fledged ~IBMers~ is that we haven’t gotten our building badges yet. 🙂 We’ll definitely be sure to keep you all updated on our badge status next week.

Today we had a great meeting discussing the Chatbot Course and how to best engage students for the Cognitive Curriculum. We debated how instead of using the Watson technology to draw interest, it would be more engaging for the students to use their interest in social issues, such as gender equality, climate change, and poverty. This way, the students wouldn’t be afraid to take part in building robots or using Watson APIs (concepts that often deter students if they don’t already know how to do them) because they would be motivated by their personal passions.

We then edited two more courses for the Cognitive Curriculum. One was about gender equality and building apps to specifically raise awareness about domestic violence. And the other was a partnership with FIRST Robotics to build robots using Watson with the ability to detect trash in the ocean (super cool, right?!). What Karen, Michelle, and I really love about these courses is that they are not only getting students into STEAM earlier, but they are focused on specific problems and designed to create social impact. It’s nice to know that not only will students be able to know how to use Watson, but they will be inspired to use it to better the world.

Drum roll please………. It’s time for the highlight of the week! (woah, yay, finally!)

Our highlight of the week was our Thursday meeting talking with some IBMers about what aspects of online courses appealed to us and what type of information was shared on different social media. We just really enjoyed the dynamic conversation we had and it felt like our first ~official~ meeting here at IBM! Also, a bonus highlight was being able to see Maureen again! We really missed her since meeting at InterConnect and it’s so fun to work with her every day! Love you, Maureen!